"Before the earliest instrumental music existed, before the first musical instruments, there existed an even earlier class of musical instruments, as evidenced by the illustrations herein. And this is their story, the saga of the brass and woodwind family of instruments that just couldn’t cut the mustard.... The beginning is indebted to the end, but the beginning is in turn indebted to the obviously flawed and undeveloped idea, absurd in conception, incredibly misconstrued, yet pursued with all the inspiration of an absent skill. Almost everything starts out as something stupid. No matter what it becomes."